The Pursuit of God

John 17:3 - "This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent."

In John chapter 17 the Lord Jesus is praying to the Father, and in His prayer He states the purpose for our existence. The question of our purpose in life has been asked by many around the world and throughout time. Why do we exist? What is the point or the meaning of life? Depending on who you ask, people will come up with all sorts of answers to this question. But in reality there is only one true answer. "This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." He doesn't say "This is the meaning of life..." or "this is our purpose in life..." but actually "this is eternal life..." Knowing Him is life itself. There are all sorts of flowery quotes and poems that tell us "life is..." you name it. "Life is a dream, a song, a bowl of cherries," but you know what none of them say? "Life is knowing God." And yet this is reality. There is no life apart from Him. And because He is infinite and eternal, knowing Him is a pursuit that we will never come to the end of. The majority of people are merely existing, not living. True life is to know God.

Mankind is searching for satisfaction. We're looking for some purpose in life that we can pour ourselves into and hopefully fill up the glaring gap within ourselves that always seems to be crying out for more. This is what that remarkable book of Ecclesiastes is all about. I'm going to try for satisfaction from every possible vantage point, from wisdom to pleasure to work to companionship to religion to political power to wealth. And after having everything, the best that this world has to offer, Solomon cries out "Vanity of vanities! All is vanity!" And this is the desperate realization of many today. "There has to be more, but I can't see it." So we seek to drive this question from our minds. The unsettling realization that life must have some meaning but nothing that I do is filling this void within myself causes us to drown out this question, whether by entertainment or music or substance, I'm going to pour something into my life that keeps me from thinking about the futility of life. Even many Christians seem to have this emptiness and they don't realize that the pursuit of God is the all-consuming purpose of life. Blaise Pascal said "There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus." That is very true. And all through time people have been trying to fill that void with anything and everything but God Himself. This was the problem with the people of Judah during the days of Jeremiah, and the Lord gives a word picture to illustrate this sad state. In Jeremiah 2:13 the Lord says - "For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water." What an abundantly clear and yet extremely sad picture. These people are dying of thirst but they refuse to come to the one place where they can drink and be satisfied. Instead of coming to the Fountain of living waters they try for satisfaction in their own pointless way, hewing out for themselves broken cisterns which are incapable of even holding water, much less of supplying it. This picture accurately portrays, not only the futility of Judah during those days, but also the sorry plight of men, woman, boys and girls around the world today. They have a strong inward desire for satisfaction but they're unwilling to come to the only One who can satisfy the thirsty soul.

And again, the issue comes down to a relationship with God, knowing Him. The Lords indictment of His people, both in Jeremiah and in Hosea, had to do with the fact that they didn't know Him. This is what we've been created for, and to neglect the pursuit of knowing Him is to neglect our purpose in life. Time and again in the early chapters of Jeremiah the Lord says against His people - "You don't know Me." This may not seem like a big deal to us, but this is a slap in the face of almighty God. He has created us for Himself, but the clay has turned against the Potter and refused to fulfill the purpose for which it was created. God takes this very seriously. This is the reason for His judgment against His people in the Old Testament. In Jeremiah 2:8 He says - "The priests did not say, ‘Where is the Lord?’ And those who handle the law did not know Me; The rulers also transgressed against Me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal and walked after things that did not profit." He says in Jeremiah 4:22 - "For My people are foolish, they know Me not." and in Jeremiah 5:4 - "Then I said, “They are only the poor, they are foolish; For they do not know the way of the Lord or the ordinance of their God." In Jeremiah 8:7 we read - "Even the stork in the sky knows her seasons; And the turtledove and the swift and the thrush observe the time of their migration; But My people do not know the ordinance of the Lord." He continues His indictment in chapter 9 verses 3 and 6 saying - "“They bend their tongue like their bow; Lies and not truth prevail in the land; For they proceed from evil to evil, and they do not know Me,” declares the Lord. “Your dwelling is in the midst of deceit; Through deceit they refuse to know Me,” declares the Lord." Time and again the Lord says of His people "They don't know Me!" This climaxes at the end of chapter 9 when the Lord makes it clear that this relationship with Him is the only thing that matters. Jeremiah 9:23-24 - "Thus says the Lord, “Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things,” declares the Lord." He then goes on in chapter 10 to reveal Himself to His people in order that they might know Him.

The Lords message through Hosea is similar to this. This is where He compares His relationship with Israel to the relationship between a husband and an adulteress wife. But again, this message boils down to a neglect of knowing Him. He says in Hosea 4:6 - "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge." That is an intimate knowledge of Him. Not merely a head-knowledge, but a relationship. He says in Hosea 5:4 - "Their deeds will not allow them to return to their God. For a spirit of harlotry is within them, and they do not know the Lord." And so the cry of the prophet in Hosea 6:3 is - "So let us know, let us press on to know the Lord." We see in Hosea 6:6 that this is the desire of Gods heart - "For I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice, and in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings." And in Hosea 2:20 the prophet foretells of a day when the people of Israel will once again enter into that relationship with her Creator and will finally know Him - "And I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness. Then you will know the Lord."

Since God is eternal, knowing Him is a pursuit that will take all eternity. It doesn't matter how mature a believer is or how long they have been saved, they have the same goal and the same pursuit as a brand new Christian. Whether you're a brand new Christian or have been walking with the Lord for sixty years, our objective doesn't change. Knowing Him isn't the beginners course on Christianity, and then we move on to something else. Pursuing this relationship is the one, all-encompassing purpose of life. The apostle Paul was one of the greatest Christians who ever lived, and he talked about the goal of his life in Philippians 3:10 where he says - "that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death." He understood that this is the only pursuit that has any true value. In fact in the verses leading up to this he talks about his life before Christ and all his earthly accomplishments, and he says that he is going to count all these things as garbage in view of knowing Christ. We read in verses 7-9 - "But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith." This was the all-consuming purpose of the life of the apostle Paul, and it should be ours as well. Paul saw this as the one needful thing in his life and we would do well to follow his example.

There is an Old Testament character who demonstrated that this was the all-consuming purpose of his life as well, and that is Moses. In Exodus 33-34 Moses is having a conversation with God and in verse 13 he says to the Lord - "Now therefore, I pray You, if I have found favor in Your sight, let me know Your ways that I may know You, so that I may find favor in Your sight. Consider too, that this nation is Your people." This is a remarkable request considering the closeness of Gods relationship with Moses. Just a few verses before this we read that "the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, just as a man speaks to his friend." That's closeness. That's intimacy. And yet, Moses is crying out for more, "That I may know You!" Again, it doesn't matter how close we are in our relationship with the Lord, there's always more of Him.

Well, in response to Moses request, God says in verse 19 - "I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the LORD before you." The Lord then took Moses and put him in the cleft of a rock and we read in Exodus 34:6-8 - "Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.” And Moses made haste to bow low toward the earth and worship." In response to Moses' request to know God, the Lord said that He would pass by in front of Him and proclaim the name of the Lord, and that's exactly what He did.

There are many ways by which we can draw closer to the Lord in our relationship with Him, knowing Him. But when Moses cried out to know God, the Lord responded with His name. God has revealed Himself to mankind through several names, so in our pursuit to know Him perhaps it's a good idea that we begin with His names.

John 17:3 - "This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent."